Professor Ulfert Onken, Technical University Dortmund, Germany, celebrates his 90th birthday on May 14, 2015.
Onken was one of the pioneers of the successful biotechnology research at the Technical University of Dortmund, and was an early proponent of the importance of computational methods and databases in physical and technical chemistry. Together with Jürgen Gmehling and Wolfgang Arlt, he developed the Dortmund Data Bank (DDB), a database for thermophysical properties of pure components and their mixtures
Ulfert Onken, born in 1925, studied chemistry at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. He received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Göttingen, Germany. Onken worked at Hoechst AG, Frankfurt, Germany, from 1958 to 1971. He then joined the Technical University of Dortmund, Germany, and founded the “Lehrstuhl für Technische Chemie B” (Chair for Technical Chemistry B). There, Professor Onken was Dean of the department for chemical engineering from 1973 to 1975. He stayed at the Technical University of Dortmund until his retirement in 1990.
Among other honors, Onken was awarded the Emil Kirschbaum Medal by the Verein Deutscher Ingenieuere (VDI, Association of German Engineers) for his lifetime achievements in research in 2000.
Selected Publications
- Technische Chemie (in German),
Manfred Baerns, Arno Behr, Axel Brehm, Jurgen Gmehling, Kai-Olaf Hinrichsen, Hanns Hofmann, Ulfert Onken, Regina Palkovits, Albert Renken,
Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2013.
ISBN 978-3-527-33072-0 - Measurement of Hydrodynamics and Dissolved Oxygen with a Polarographic Microelectrode,
Ulfert Onken, Miriam Hainke,
Chem. Eng. Technol. 1999, 22, 767–772.
DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1521-4125(199909)22:9<767::AID-CEAT767>3.0.CO;2-6 - Chemische Prozeßkunde (in German),
Ulfert Onken, Arno Behr,
Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 1996.
ISBN: 978-3-527-30864-4 - Selective recycle of viable animal cells by coupling of airlift reactor and cell settler,
Manfred Hülscher, Uwe Scheibler, Ulfert Onken,
Biotechnol. Bioeng. 1992, 39, 442–446.
DOI: 10.1002/bit.260390410 - Reynolds shear stress for modeling of bubble column reactors,
Thomas Menzel, Thomas In der Weide, Oliver Staudacher, Ondra Wein, Ulfert Onken,
Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 1990, 29, 988–994.
DOI: 10.1021/ie00102a007 - Inhibition of bubble coalescence by solutes in air/water dispersions,
Gunter Keitel, Ulfert Onken,
Chem. Eng. Sci. 1982, 37, 1635–1638.
DOI: 10.1016/0009-2509(82)80033-X
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